


That’s not a cross look, it’s a sign of life

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-13
Updated: 2010-07-13
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:51:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's out of the cage, there's a werewolf, Dean is stupid (or reckless, or maybe just insouciant), there is make-up sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That’s not a cross look, it’s a sign of life

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Frank O'Hara.

Sam’s been out of the cage five weeks, two days and almost thirteen hours when a werewolf comes straight at him in a scraggly patch of pine in Minnesota. Dean’s at the wrong angle to shoot. He goes for a flying tackle instead, and he’s breathing rank fur and warm dog breath – that’s just gross -- mixed with resin before his brain processes that he’s not so much come between Sammy and the werewolf as between the werewolf and Sam’s gun. Then he’s pinned on his back on the ground, breath knocked out of him, crushing weight on his chest. Sam’s going to be mad at him. Fuck.

Sam’s big and he’s fast and he’s pissed. It’s perhaps a second before he’s standing over Dean and _kicking_ the wolf off him -- which is fucking hot, not that Dean should be thinking that now -- and then there’s a shot. When his head has stopped ringing Dean’s lying on the pine needles, the werewolf – now a skinny, dead teenager, no more than sixteen, damn it – is sprawled in a bloody heap beside him, and Sam is looming there like an angry brick shithouse. His jaw is clenched and he doesn’t say a word as he hauls Dean half up, props him against a tree, and peels off his torn shirts to check him over. Looking for tooth marks. Christ. There are none, not even a scratch, only the beginnings of bruises. Sam slumps forward for a moment, like all his tendons have been cut, his forehead against Dean’s, his breath ragged and deep. Then Sylvester Stallone is back, nothing but the faintest twitch in the rigid muscles of Sam’s face while they clear a patch of ground and pile up branches and burn the kid’s body.

It’s a silent ride back to the motel. Sam gets in the driver’s side and stretches his hand towards Dean for the keys. Dean’s not even especially sore, and Sam’s hand is shaking, but Dean figures there’s already one big fight coming up that he’s going to lose.

Sure enough, the yelling starts the moment they’re in the motel room.

“What the fuck was that, Dean? What the hell kind of stupid move were you pulling back there?”

Dean’s not about to let a little thing like being in the wrong get in the way of defending himself. Anyway, he figures Sam needs him to fight back, to deny he almost got himself killed, or worse, bit, for no reason.

“There was a werewolf coming at you, Sam. What was I supposed to do, watch?”

“You were _supposed_ to let both of us do our damn job. I had a clear shot. Which I should have just gone ahead and taken when you put your moronic ass in the way.”

Sam’s moving jerkily around the motel room as he speaks, slamming keys and gun on the bureau, stripping off his jacket. He fetches up against the wall, radiating equal parts tiredness and rage. His face is smudged with ash and resin. “You’re not going to stop doing this, are you?” he asks, and the tiredness is winning. Which, fuck, manipulative bastard. He knows Dean doesn’t stand up well to genuinely upset Sam. If the kid had any decency, he’d be putting it on.

Six months Sam was down in the pit. Five weeks, two days, fifteen hours and forty-three minutes he’s been back. No way Dean’s watching him go down, not ever again.

“Probably not,” he admits. “You know, some people would think it was a nice thing, me saving your ass from werewolves. Not like the wolf was going to damage me. I had it under control.”

Sam’s shoulders jerk against the hideous zinnia wallpaper (and how does Dean know those are zinnias, anyway?), and he’s shouting again. “Seriously, Dean? I mean, fucking seriously? You want to do something nice for me, then get me an iPad, or wake me up with a blow-job. Don’t. Fucking. Die. Don’t make me watch you get killed and then say you did it for me.”

“Dude, I’m not buying you some overpriced techie feminine hygiene thing,” says Dean, sticking to the safe ground in that minefield. Though the blow-job idea sounds awesome. Do iPads come in pink? Sam probably wants one in pink.

Sam bangs his head against the wall at that and actually hisses. Then he reaches out and grabs Dean by his jacket and pulls him in. Dean gets ready to be shaken or slammed against the wall or maybe kissed, but Sam just wraps his miles of steel cable arms around him and holds on. Dean can feel Sam’s heart slamming against his ribs, too fast, and Dean gets it, he does. The sealed ground of Stull Cemetery. Six months. He leans in a bit and waits while Sam’s harsh, angry breathing gradually slows. It’s like they have a whole conversation, like they finish the fight, though no one says a word, and go on to the make-up sex, though they’re not even hard.

Not that Dean’s not up for doing something about that.

The silver lining to having a giant freak for a little brother is that when Sam hugs him –disregarding Dean’s repeated, formal protests – Dean’s mouth ends up in handy proximity to Sam’s neck. He only has to turn his head a little to put his lips against Sam’s pulse, rushing steady and miraculous under the warm skin. He tongues it, tasting sweat and pine, feeling it speed up.

“Dude. Quit.”

“Why?” says Dean. He moves his lips up, behind the corner of Sam’s jaw. Sam’s ticklish there; Dean catches the faint quiver in his muscles. Then he drops his head and bites gently at the hollow of Sam’s throat and Sam growls, almost inaudibly, cock twitching against Dean where they’re pressed together. Dean’s already half hard himself.

“Because I’m mad at you, jerk. Stop with the mollifying.”

Just because they’re seemingly mostly back to OK doesn’t mean Dean needs to stand down the killer logic. “If you’re so angry, why are you hugging me?” he asks incontrovertibly.

“Asshole. You keep insisting you hate hugs,” Sam says, but Dean’s mouth is against his Adam’s apple now and he can feel the smile in his voice. “The hug is an expression of my displeasure.”

“Mmmm.” Dean nudges a bit with his nose, and Sam tilts his head back obligingly. Good. More neck. On the other hand, it makes the underside of Sam’s chin kind of hard to reach. “Too fucking tall,” Dean grumbles reflexively.

“We could get you a stool of some kind,” Sam offers, “one of those colorful plastic things they have for little kids. Ow.” OK, that last nibble may have crossed the line into vindictive. Or vampiric. Sam doesn’t mind, judging by how his hips cant forward, arching into Dean. His hand wraps around the back of Dean’s head, pulling Dean’s mouth closer against his skin. Sam holds him there, turning his own head this way and that so Dean’s teeth scrape along the stubble. Dean flicks his tongue against skin and Sam’s breath catches. Dean reaches up in turn, tangling his hand in the hair at the nape of Sam’s neck, pulling him down till their mouths meet.

This conversation Dean knows. It’s what they say with this: _You’re here. I’m here_. The desperate basics. Sam has his hands fisted in Dean’s jacket again, pushing him back towards the bed, stumbling, all lips and teeth and muscle and harsh breathing. Dean opens to the kisses, dizzy, steadying Sam. He falls onto the bed, pulls Sam down over him. He’s achingly hard. Sam’s hands are everywhere, fumbling at his buttons, pushing his t-shirt up, tugging at his belt buckle. His knee nudges Dean’s legs apart, his voice is a ragged litany, Dean, Dean, Dean. Dean lets his mind sink away into this, wrestle and weight and Sam’s familiar scent.

Somehow they get their clothes off, find the lube. It’s always in the bottom of the duffle. The second duffle they look in, doesn’t matter whose they start with. “Told you it was in yours,” snaps Dean, though he hadn’t, and Sam gives him a martyred eyeroll, mutters, “Like it would kill us to have a designated place.” A lube-shaped pocket in Sam’s man-bag, Dean figures, labeled “lube.” For a moment the flash of irritation threatens to derail his lower brain altogether, and then it trips, tangled in fondness and lust. Sam looks so fucking ridiculous there, naked, glaring at Dean from next to their emptied duffles, hunched over a weeping erection. All present and in one piece. Five weeks, two days, and sixteen hours now. “Are you going to get on with it, princess, or do I have to wait all night while you alphabetize your lotions?” Dean asks. And Sam’s on him like the fucking werewolf.

They end with Dean on his back, a pillow under his hips, legs wrapped around Sam’s thighs while Sam fucks into him in slow, deep strokes. Sam’s propped on his arms, hands gripping Dean’s shoulders with bruising force, his torso and chest over Dean like a breathing roof. All the home Dean wants, more essential even than the metal and leather history of the Impala. His face is twisted with concentration, his breath comes in shuddering pants. Dean hooks his legs higher, drawing Sam deeper in, rocking his hips steadily into Sam’s thrusts. Always, when he has Sam like this, balanced on the edge deep inside him, he feels the urge to _help_ , a surge of protectiveness as intense and incongruous as the one that sent him stupidly into Sam’s line of fire. Except this, now, is something Sam will take from him, wants from him. He pushes back the sweaty hair around Sam’s temples, tucks it behind his ears, strokes over the nape of his neck, his shoulders, the hollow of his throat. Sam makes a questioning noise, shifts his angle, stroking over Dean’s prostate, and Dean moans, tangling his hands through Sam’s hair again and again, keeping up a soothing babble, “Yeah, Sammy, you're OK, it's OK, come on, it's all good, we're all good." Sam’s hips lurch and he spurts inside Dean, shouting his name, “Dean, Dean,” like he’s surprised. Then he collapses over Dean, hot and sweaty and fucking heavy, and gropes blindly to finish Dean off with a few long pulls.

Dean listens for the second time that night to the steady decrescendo of Sam’s breathing. He settles his head against Sam’s shoulder, too lazy to clean up or move to the pristine bed. His mind is foggy and blank, contented fade from orgasmic whiteout. The occasional thought looms out of the mist. If they left a damp washcloth on the nightstand before they had sex it would be right there when they finished. They could put it in the ice bucket, in warm water, so it wouldn’t be all nasty and cold. A dry towel would be good, too. _Semper paratu_ s, or something. Now that’s an idea that’s useful. Not like Sam and his stupid lube pocket.

He probably said some of that out loud, because Sam says “Unh.” Not exactly “That’s brilliant, Dean, much better than my stupid lube pocket idea,” but hey. If Dean’s wiped Sam’s verbal circuits with the mind-blowing sex, he can live with that.

Or maybe Sam’s not thinking about washcloths. His fingers are roaming Dean’s shoulders, lingering on the bruises from the hunt, testing unbroken skin. Dean sighs, lets his eyes drift closed and his voice start up, hardly listening to his own patter. Sam’s fingers gradually still.

“. . . don’t know what you were so worried about. See? Right here. Awesome as ever. Not a nip on me. At least not from the werewolf. Mr Handsy McToothy.” No response. Huh. “You’re asleep, aren’t you? You fucking fell asleep on me and now I’m talking to myself.”

He cranes his head, careful not to disturb the arm Sam has flung over his shoulder. Sam’s face is relaxed and his breathing even. Dean blows experimentally across a nipple and he doesn’t twitch. Whispers “Saaammmmyyy” in his ear, and his eyelids don’t stir. He eases back cautiously. Now that there aren’t emotional earthquakes all over the place and the time for therapeutic obstinacy is past – and now that they’re not in the middle of the fantastic make-up sex -- he maybe owes it to Sam to confess. Especially since Sam’s asleep and won’t get upset again or lord it over him or something.

“I was maybe a little wrong, what I did back there, with the wolf,” he says, very, very quietly.

Sam’s arm immediately tightens around his shoulders. Crap.

“You were a lot wrong,” he says, without opening his eyes. “You are a very short, very wrong person. Who’s not allowed to get himself killed.”

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction,” says Dean darkly, and Sam snorts. It’s OK, Dean thinks, Sam’s OK now. They lie there in the light,/dark, light/dark of the blinds, breathing together. Then Dean turns, tucking his head under Sam’s chin, and kisses his neck once more, right where it meets his shoulder. “Go to sleep, Sammy,” he says. But Sam’s already out, this time for real.

At least, Dean thinks it’s for real. He’s not about to test it by promising Sam that iPad.


End file.
